Sly Reynard, heedful of the coming doom,
Thought, self-deceived,
He should not be perceived,
Hiding his brush within a neighbouring broom;
But quite unconscious of a Poacher’s snare,
And caught in copper noose,
And looking like a goose,
Found that his fate “had hung upon a hare;”
His tricks and turns were rendered of no use to him,
And, worst of all, he saw old surly Tray
Coming to play
Tray-Deuce with him.
[Pg 265]
Tray, an old Mastiff bred at Dunstable,
Under his Master, a most special constable,
Instead of killing Reynard in a fury,
Seized him for legal trial by a Jury;
But Juries—Æsop was a sheriff then—
Consisted of twelve Brutes and not of Men.
But first the Elephant sat on the body—
I mean the Hen—and proved that she was dead,
To the veriest fool’s head
Of the Booby and the Noddy.
Accordingly, the Stork brought in a bill
Quite true enough to kill;
And then the Owl was call’d—for mark,
The Owl can witness in the dark.
To make the evidence more plain,
The Lynx connected all the chain.
In short there was no quirk or quibble
At which a legal Rat coul............